But When Can I Occupy Regina?

The Globe and Mail is telling me that B.C. and Alberta and Toronto all have their Occupy [City/Place] events ready to roll.

But what about Occupy Regina? Is that going to happen?

The answer: Yes. October 15, in the new downtown plaza. The end date on the Facebook event is December 31 at 11:30 p.m., so you’ll still have time to find a New Year’s party. Also, if you’re interested in debating the merits of the Occupy movement with other Regina folks, that event page is not a bad place to go.

(Something to keep in mind if you’re going — we can all get behind some protest signs a whole lot more if they aren’t frustratingly incompetent.)

Can you occupy extra space for me? I’m volunteering at the Cathedral Village Arts Festival rummage sale that day. (At the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre, 2900 13th Ave. Come early, there’s lots of great stuff to buy for cheap and all proceeds go to support the CVAF. Then afterwards you can go strike a blow against capitalism.)

Actually, I have to say a Saturday strikes me as an odd choice to do the Occupy thing. I’d think you’d want to hold an event like this on a day when you’d actually inconvenience some of Regina’s high financiers.

Also, I don’t think this is so much intended as a “blow” against capitalism as it is a blow against the legalized abuses of capitalism. BTW, capitalism is such a heavy word and I’ve got to imagine, quite out of use. I thankfully grew up and never heard the word used once in my household; I think only crazy families on both left and right use it around the dinner table. I would prefer “shareholder-focused free market profit-seeking economics” or something. As for normal people, “capitalism” is no more than a mind-trap like “communism”; I mean, it only really exists if you engage with it. Is that stupid motherf*cker calling you at dinnertime asking you spend your money on his service a “capitalist”? If he pisses you off, so does capitalism. But I doubt you’d return to your dinner table going, “Oh, that was just some douchebaggy capitalist” trying to clean the carpets.” So I guess my point is, this is a rally against the perceived and real abuses of the economic system that we presently reside under. Telemarketers included.

Now, they are actually occupying the “financial district” of Regina, right? Not just occupying unrelated locations like those not in Wall Street? We’re not going to see people wearing balaclavas and unrelated businesses needing glass repair?
Just trying to plan my Saturday…

Regina doesn’t have a militant underclass, nor a militant mentally-disturbed middle class faction capable of property damage. At least not in a crowd. It’s probably got something to do with that union tradition of accountability to eachother and “one for all” mentality that keeps people in line. Oh wait, unions and all their dogma is bad. Maybe we should break off as rugged individualists and inflict some damage, like hedge fund managers and Wall Street speculators. No, irony is so much sweeter.

I believe everyone is heading to Vic park – near our financial district. This might be totally naive and I will probably get booed but doing this in Canada isn’t quite making a tonne of sense to me. I understand what is going on in the states to a point – underwater houses, people losing their pensions, the government not investing in jobs, bailouts, corporate greed, purchasing politicians – but do all those things apply to us Canadians? Maybe I don’t spend enough time looking at what is happening here, but there don’t seem to be as many parallels. I suppose what is happening here isn’t a protest (which is what I read on the occupy Regina facebook page) so – what is it? Are they gathering to support the states and to condemn corporate greed? What are OUR demands? What things do WE as Canadians want to change?